California woman in coma gives birth to healthy baby

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Melissa Carleton and Brian Lande are the new parents of a healthy boy. Carleton delivered while in a coma and remains unconscious. (Courtesy Lande family)

Yesterday, doctors at the University of California, San Francisco, Medical Center performed a successful Cesarean section on a woman in a coma. The medical team handed the baby boy named West Nathaniel Lande over to the father.

The situation was bittersweet. Brian Lande held a healthy baby yet his wife, Melissa Carleton, wasn’t conscious to welcome her child.

“As happy as I am to meet my son, it is incredibly painful for Melissa not to be awake with me for this,” Lande, who works as the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputy, told KTVU-TV.

West weighed five pounds, nine ounces at birth.

“He’s got his mom’s nose and his mom’s ears and he’s opening his eyes and looking around already,” Lande told KTVU-TV.

Carleton, 39, went into a coma when a benign brain tumor caused a seizure that knocked her into a coma. Carleton learned about the tumor when she was pregnant and started suffering from bad headaches. The soon-to-be-mom decided to hold off on surgery to remove the tumor until after delivering her baby.

In March, her state became severe and she could barely walk from from the parking lot to the hospital doors on a trip to see a doctor, according to ABC News. The next morning she had the seizure and underwent emergency surgery.

Carleton’s injury is in the part of the brain that controls wakefulness and doctors suspect she’s aware of what’s going on around her. She has opened her eyes, squeezed family members’ hands and moved her lips during a kiss.

On the day of the C-section, Carleton’s father said her daughter started to become more aware.

“In a few tender moments, she reached out to Brian, took his cheek, pulled his cheek down to her face and held it there,” John Farrell told ABC News. “It was the first time she had hugged Brian since this trauma happened.”

SFGate reached out to UCSF and the medical team isn’t providing details on Carleton’s medical situation.